Beer Brewing Appliance

This New Gadget Is A Home-Brewing Game-Changer

When I was younger, I lived in a big Long Island house alongside four other friends. We were in our early 20s, all single and bartending for a living. It was as disgusting a scene as you could imagine. We constantly played poker, perpetually tried to get laid and drank like a bunch of hobos who just found a wallet. And at least a portion of that youthful alcoholism came from funneling homemade hooch. Yes, we four morons did, in fact, brew our own beer. We thought the idea of making our own beer was awesome. It sounded cool. It felt great catching a buzz on your own product. But, sadly, the legacy of Hoare Ale was short-lived.

Brewing your own beer is a tiresome process, and at that age, I lacked any and all patience. There are multiple steps, a long, arduous fermenting process and countless pieces of necessary beer-brewing equipment. To brew even one batch, you'll need, among other things, a large pail or some type of vat, a siphon, a fermenter, a thermometer and a hydrometer. It's a big, messy ordeal.

Until now.

Enter Picobrew. This company is a small but incredibly cool Seattle startup that's looking to bring home brewing to the masses. For $1,699, the Picobrew Zymatic is a device roughly the size of a microwave that simplifies the brewing process to a ridiculous degree. In fact, this is the closest we've ever coming to the Keurig of beer.

And the men behind this new alcohol-fueled appliance are far from beer-swilling dummies. In fact, quite the opposite. Picobrew's CEO is Bill Mitchell, a former executive at Microsoft. During his time at the massive corporation, he was an integral part of the company's developing its first smartphones. But as an executive working round-the-clock at a multimedia conglomerate, Jim grew tired of coming home to scrub beer vats after a hard day's work. So he got together with his brother, Jim Mitchell, and another former Microsoft vet, Avi Geiger, and the Picobrew was born.

The three booze pioneers launched a Kickstarter with a rather modest goal of $150,000. Eight hundred sixty-six backers later, the guys wound up raising a staggering $661,026. And it’s not all that shocking, given that the video attached to the page is wildly impressive, showing a freshly brewed beer that took less than an hour to create. Previously, brewing beer literally took weeks — the Picobrew Zymatic gets it done in just seconds. To say I find this machine impressive would be an understatement. These three innovators have essentially created an espresso machine that makes beer.

I'm totally picking up one of these bad boys for my own house. The Picobrew Zymatic is available for pre-order now, with an estimated delivery date of August. Just in time for Labor Day.